Grammar and vocabulary of geography

Image above:The Kids World Citizen site posting on fundamental geographical knowledge all students (and teachers) should have.

Related links to Spatialworlds
GeogSplace (a teaching blog for Year 12 geography)
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
GeogSpace
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website

Geographical thinking Scoop.it

Spatial literacy Scoop.it

History and geography Scoop.it

Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it
Just real interesting Scoop.it

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Email contact:

manning@chariot.net.au

Where am I??
Adelaide, Australia: S: 34º 55' E: 138º 36'


Knowledge required for understanding

 "If we were to imagine learning to think geographically to be a bit like learning a language, then we need both geographical vocabulary and grammar in order to do this. The subject's 'core knowledge' can be thought of as geography's vocabulary – the extensive, factual basis of the 'world subject'. If core knowledge is geography's vocabulary, geography's conceptual framework forms its grammar."                                                                         David Lambert


This posting is dedicated to the thinking of David Lambert, former Geography Association of the UK CEO and presently the Professor of Geography Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. In his numerous articles David has referred to the grammar and vocabulary of geography. I have found this way of thinking extremely useful when working with teachers not fully acquitted with the nuances of geographical education. David's approach to professional learning through this analogy is quite fascinating and very helpful in structural learning approaches with teachers. In a nutshell, the analogy is that the conceptual thinking of geography can be viewed as the grammar of geography and the exhaustive knowledge, language and skills of geography as the vocabulary.  Without the so called vocabulary, as teachers we are restricted in developing deep geographical understandings through the thinking in geography, the grammar. 

Some associated thinking on the need to teach the vocabulary of geography relates to the area of citizenship education. Some argue, and I agree, such basic geographical knowledge, understandings and skills are imperative for young adults to know, so that they can navigate society as a citizen. In a previous Spatialworlds blog I explored this idea in a posting called Spatial citizenship.  

A slide from my Geographical Knowledge workshop

I consider such a view as extremely pertinent to where we are at with the professional learning of teachers in geography in Australia.  Teachers are engaging with the structure and content of the curriculum, but without sound geographical knowledge and skills they are limited in developing the deep geographical understandings and thinking which is implicit in the Australian Curriculum: Geography Achievement Standards. In fact, I think the application of the Achievement Standards is virtually impossible without the grammar and vocabulary as enunciated by David.

So what is the vocabulary of geography? In recent months I have started conducting geographical knowledge workshops with teachers as a follow-up to the geographical grammar (thinking) workshops I have been conducting since 2012. Interestingly I came across a blog posting from the other side of the world today which eerily reflected almost exactly the workshops I have been conducting. Such a coincidence was affirming that there is some core knowledge that geography educators can relate to as foundation and essential knowledge as the vocabulary building stones.

Here is a slide showing a broad outline of what I cover in the geographical vocabulary workshop  

Now have a look at the blog posting on the area of essential geographical knowledge (vocabulary) from the Kid World Citizen site - interestingly similar!
Having said all of that, the challenge for geography educators involved in conducting professional learning for teachers is to present such material in an interesting and accessible manner, in a short timespan and not to come across to adult learners as treating them like Geographical ignoramus’s’!

Download the attached flyer from Dropbox if you or any of your colleagues are interested in attending any of the Geographical Grammar and Knowledge workshops in South Australia during the remainder of this year or in 2015. 

Observation skills from the air

 Image above: Oblique aerial photograph of West Lakes, Adelaide.

Related links to Spatialworlds 
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
GeogSpace
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog

Geographical thinking Scoop.it  

Spatial literacy Scoop.it  

History and geography Scoop.it 

Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it   

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:

manning@chariot.net.au    

Where am I??  
Adelaide, Australia: S: 34º 55' E: 138º 36'


Observation as a skill when using oblique aerial photographs

Observation and questioning are important skills in the Australian Curriculum: Geography. Geographical Skills are described in the curriculum under five sub-headings representing the stages of a complete inquiry. Observing and questioning are highlighted as the first stage of inquiry.  

The ACARA site says that:

"Teachers could, for example, provide students with data to represent or analyse rather than have them collect the information themselves. Many inquiries should start from the observations, questions and curiosity of students. Inquiry will progressively move from more teacher-centred to more student-centred as students develop cognitive abilities and gain experience with the process and methods across the years of schooling."

This posting is dedicated to the potential of oblique aerial photographs as a resource to stimulate geographical questioning. In my class I have been using a set of photographs I have snapped out of planes (geography teachers love window seats!) in recent years, asking students to tell me what they see? It is fascinating what they talk about and the activity gives me an opportunity to turn a photograph out of a plane into a geographical discussion early in the course.

Here is a selection of the photographs I use for your interest and use if you wish (just increase size by double clicking on the image and then right mouse click to 'Copy Image' or 'Save As Image' as a JPEG). They range from suburban, coastal, rural, mountain to urban.

When I present the oblique aerial photographs to the students I ask them to:

*Firstly, try to describe all the natural and cultural features evident in the photography.  

*Secondary, look to see if you can see any patterns, distributions, trends in the features you have described in the photography. 

* Finally, try to explain why things are where they are - the 'why of the where' of geography
 

 Image 1:  Adelaide CBD

 Image 2: Snow covered mountains somewhere over Italy

 Image 3: Suburban Adelaide landuse

 Image 4: Farmland on Yorke Peninsula, South Australia  

 Image 5: Suburban Perth

 Image 6: Coastal engineering, south of Rome

 Image 7: Coastal South Australia

 Image 8: Sydney CBD

Image 9: Glenelg, South Australia

Image 10: New York

Searching for skills

Image above: Sunrise over Sydney Harbour.


Related sites to the Spatialworlds project

Spatialworlds website

21st Century Geography Google Group

Australian Geography Teachers' Association website

'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website

Geography Teachers' Association of South Australia website

Humsteach blog

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter 

Email contact

manning@chariot.net.au

Where am I??

Adelaide, Australia: S: 34º 55' E: 138º 36'

Searching for the 21^st Century geographical skills

In many of the Spatialworlds posting we have talked about the concepts in the Australian Curriculum: Geography and their importance in developing geographical thinking. In this posting I want to explore the generic skills involved in the teaching and learning of geography in the 21^st Century.  

The Australian Curriculum: History clearly articulated the generic skills of history and embedded them in a developmental manner very effectively in their F-10 historical skills strand. The historical skills identified in the ACARA document are continuity and change, cause and effect, significance, perspectives, empathy and contestability. 

The challenge for geography is to identify a list of generic skills that goes to the core of geographical education. When anyone asks a geography teacher; “What skills do you want your students to develop”, we should be able to articulate those skills clearly and coherently. We are very good at saying we want our students to understand maps, undertake inquiry, draw graphs, do cross-sections etc but geographical skills are much much more in the 21^st Century world of geography. This posting is not intended to develop a comprehensive and finite list. Rather, it intends to be a useful starting point for teachers to begin to think about the generic geographical skills to be developed in the teaching of geography.  I would also hope that it will provide an opportunity to debate what we are actually trying to develop in our students in terms of skills for citizenship and living.  I would suggest that in geography these skills, as is the case with the concepts, make geography geography

. 

Here is a go at making a generic geography skills list!

• Conceptualisation: to discuss geographical events, phenomena and places using the geographical concepts of place, space, environment, interconnection, sustainability, change and scale.
• Comparability: to compare and contrast geographical places, processes, features, events and spatial arrangements.
• Cause and effect: to identify causation and impact of geographical processes, spatial variations and events.
• Contestability: to discern that there are multiple explanations for geographical phenomena and be prepared to discuss multiple causes, interpretations and futures.
• Empathy: to be empathetic to the impact of geography on humans and have an understanding of a variety of views and impressions.
• Futures: to be able to project forward and suggest possible futures for whatever geography studied.
• Graphicacy: to evaluate and use data in the form of maps, graphs or other visual representations of the earth.
• Questioning: to ask the inquiry questions of what, where, why and so what?
• Source/data critiquing: the ability to collect, interrogate and analyse data and visual representations (maps, visualisations, images). 
• Whyabouts: to explore the ‘why of the where’ when investigating the reasons for the location of geographical features, places and spaces.

Hopefully this list and interpretations of the skills will start some discussion of generic geographical skills. They are certainly going to be part of professional learning for geography I hope to conduct in the future. I should emphasise that this listing is just me thinking out aloud and not any official work of ACARA as they develop the Australian Curriculum: Geography.